Millar Gough Ink

Background

Millar Gough Ink is the production company founded in 1997 by Miles Millar and Alfred Gough. They have produced television series such as The Strip, the Superman prequel television series Smallville, the 2006 TV pilot of Aquaman and the 2011 remake of Charlie's Angels.

1st Logo (October 12, 1999-November 10, 2011)

An open matte version of the logo.
An widescreen version of the logo.
An cropped 4:3 version of the logo.

Nicknames: "Orange-Red Ink", "Ink Bottle Gets the Banhammer", "SPLAT!!"

Logo: In an office setting, at the forefront, we see a bottle filled with orange red ink in it labeled:

MILLAR
GOUGH
INK

in an Impact font colored yellow, with only the bottom half of "INK" in white/silver. After a while, a hammer (which, if you look very closely, can be seen in the reflection on the bottle) swings down and smashes the bottle, causing the orange red ink in it to fly everywhere and covering up the screen.

Variants:

On the short-lived show The Strip, 2003 DVD releases and Channel 4 and E4 UK airings of season 1 or 4:3 prints of all episodes of Smallville, there is an open matte version of this logo
Cropped 4:3 versions exist.

FX/SFX: The hammer smashing the ink bottle, the ink spreading. It's all live-action.

Music/Sounds: Here are the main music versions:

1999: After the closing theme of the show plays, there is a splattering sound.
2001-2002: Just a different sound of the bottle breaking.
On the Smallville season 1 episodes "X-Ray" and "Hug", the logo is silent.
Early 2002: An 3-note odd, short piano tune with an eerie sound effect is played in the background.
2002-2011: A reverberating cartoon ditty.
On early season 2 episodes of Smallville, the reverberating cartoon ditty is somewhat slightly quieter before the bottle breaking sound appears.

All music versions ended with the bottle breaking sound, sometimes louder.

Availability: First seen on the short-lived show The Strip. Also seen on Smallville, the 2006 pilot of Aquaman (also named Mercy Reef) and the 2011 version of Charlie's Angels. Look for the rare print logo on the back of the Smallville DVD/Blu-ray cover.

Legacy: While the sound of the bottle breaking can be possibly startling for some people (especially the version without music where a bottle breaks with no warning, which could be probably jarring to many people), some people may find this logo pretty funny, and it may be favored for fans of Smallville. For the sound of the bottle breaking, the bottle breaking with no warning can be jarring to many people. For the music version, it may slightly be less scary with the music playing.

2nd Logo (November 15, 2015-)

Logo: On a black background, we see the stacked words "MILLAR GOUGH" in red. To the right of it is a red beaker on the bottle with a big black drop in it, and inside the drop is the red word "INK".

FX/SFX: None.

Music/Sounds: None, or the ending theme of the show.

Availability: Seen on the 2015 AMC series Into the Badlands and the 2016 MTV series The Shannara Chronicles. This logo is expected to appear on the 2022 upcoming Netflix Addams-Family spin-off show Wednesday.